Packard Forum Index » Project Blogs

The 1937 sales brochure states that the gear shift is nickel plated. When we rebuilt the trans we had the shifter plated.

I have an original 1937 brochure specifically for the De Luxe package. It's on this site in the literature section. It mentions the steering column being nickel plated, but doesn't mention the shifter. Mine does appear to be nickel plated. As a note, from the picture, my steering column is nickel plated, but got painted sometime before 1960....what's left of the plating is under the paint.


As already mentioned, the sales brochure says "...and brightly plated gear shift lever..."

Somewhere among the literature is mentioned a shorter shift throw ... 1937, I think. Maybe they accomplished that by shortening the shift lever, as many a hot rodder did.

Ok. Thanks all for the input! I think for now I wi clean it up best I can and tackle that a bit later. Not sure if chrome/nickel will be an option for me.

So I have run into a head scratcher. I have the wire harness installed. All except the lights. I figure I could do a “test”. So I hooked up a front head light.

But no luck. Headlight did not turn on. Horn did not work the “blinky” on the turn signal did not flash.

The fuel gauge does peg to full as I don’t have the sending unit hooked up yet. So energy is flowing.

Do I need to have everything hooked up before anything will work?

I double checked all wiring and all are according to the diagram and instructions.

Any thoughts on where to begin my trouble shooting?

Battery is fully charged.

Don, as an aside, is your front seat stationary? It was in my 1964 Imperial Crown limousine and your seat looks very much like it.

Check your grounds. You can test the power for the headlights at the sockets by removing the bulb and test for power on the brass bulb contact. Just make sure no to touch the socket can with the test light. Make sure the other end of test light is touching a known good ground (no paint or anything in the way). If you have power there the the problem is a bad ground or bad bulb. You can verify a bad bulb by using the socket can as the ground. If it lights then it's a bad or incorrect bulb.

If no power then repeat the test with the terminals on the dimmer switch. And see if there is any power there. If there is and on at least one of the other terminals, then the problem is in the wiring between there and the headlight sockets. If no power there, even on all the headlight positions, then the power is either at the switch of thr wiring between the two.

The same concept at the horns.

Start at the destination and work back towards the soruce. My money is on bad grounds.

If you kept the relay with fuses which was assumed to be powering the sealed beam conversion make sure it is getting power and that the dimmer switch is actually turning on the relays. If you are using a stock harness and the headlight switch with city, county, pass combinations for headlights then you may need to chase wires and modify connections to eliminate some of the combinations.

Since the turn signals were not offered on 37 models it is hard to guess what might be going on without seeing a diagram of what must be an aftermarket item. There were several brands but if you can find a mfg or model a diagram might be found on the web.

Horns get power from the BAT post on starter solenoid to power the relay which operate the horns. The command is a ground from the horn button. Most cars have an inline connecter at the base of the steering box to join the wire from the button to the loom so if your car has one make sure there is a good connection with wire from button to the loom and it continues on to the relay.

Quote:


Yes, the seat is stationary in the limo due to the divider.

Thank BK/Howard.
All good stuff, and I will dig in. As I was reviewing drawings, I noticed that my generator does not have this wire attached to the frame. I did not get under, as I didn't have time, but will later today.

Is this required? Could this be the issue? All other wires are correct.

You probably should have it. Also, make sure your ground from battery to frame is in good shape. There should be a secondary ground strap between the transmission case and the frame.

Grounding issues are pretty common when fasteners/parts/body/frame have been repainted. Paint can make an excellent insulator in places where you don't want it to be. Sometimes you need to clean the paint off a bolt/screw/etc to get it ground to where it is attached.

On the headlights, I ran a dedicated ground wire in the harness from the headlights/parking lights and connected it to the front bolt that secures the inner fender to the radiator support frame. I'm not sure if the original harness had that.